


Options

by goresmores



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Kissing, M/M, lance talks too much and hunk thinks too much, lowkey angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 02:06:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8426725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goresmores/pseuds/goresmores
Summary: Life is full of options, and the things we pick and choose lead us down the paths we clear for ourselves.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so uuuhhhhh boy idk. lowkey i wrote this for my boyfriend bc hes gay and also a mega slut for hance (shoutout to u, babe) but also!!! this ended up becoming a bit of a personal thing after i didn't really know what direction to take this in, so i really hope yall enjoy it???
> 
> (also, someone stop me from adding houston details into my fics,, one day im gonna scare someone)

Life bubbles down to options, if you really think about it. 

The toys you play with as a kid, the classes you take when you get into middle school and high school, the people you hang out with during those years. Sometimes the feelings you have for someone might not be quite as optional as you wished they could be, but in the end, what you choose to do with the feelings you have _i_ ) optional. And as awful as it might sound, by a certain point, even being alive becomes an option. 

Of course, life is full of variables, and it’s important to consider those, but Hunk wasn’t really in the mood to sit there and make a list of the countless variables in life that prevented options. 

Instead, he focused on the few options that he himself had; most importantly, at the moment, the ones involving his crush on his best friend. 

He had the option to tell Lance how he felt.

He had the option to ask Lance not to go on the date with Kaley that he had tomorrow. 

He had the option to _not_ tell Lance he could practice kissing with him, even if it meant that Lance went in unprepared. 

Was he offering to practice with Lance to be a good friend, or was it a selfish offer? Was he only doing it because for months, maybe even as long as a year now, he’d constantly had those lips on his mind, even if he really shouldn’t? 

This was an option he didn’t have. 

One of these “choices” was the reality of the situation. You can't just decide for yourself what your motives behind something are, because there’s always a right or wrong answer, and you can’t argue against reality. 

So, yeah. Hunk was offering to kiss Lance because that’s what he wanted more than anything. 

He wanted to feel his friend’s thin lips again his own, he wanted to pull him close and kiss him dizzy and translate all of his thoughts and feelings through the connection of their lips, as many of them as possible before it was over. 

He wanted Lance to understand all of those thoughts and feelings, so that maybe, Hunk wouldn’t have to actually say them all, and maybe Lance would like him back, maybe Lance would kiss him again, but this time with his tongue. He wanted Lance’s heart in it, and he wanted to be so close in the moment that he could feel whether Lance’s heart sped up or not, whether his face got hot from his blush, whether he trembled during the kiss. 

More than anything, though, he wanted to be the one Lance was going on a date with.

He wasn’t, though. 

And what did he really get from the kiss? 

He got Lance’s twiddling thumbs, blush hot across his tan cheeks. He got wide eyes at his offer, and he got an awkward lean forward, and awkward touch of lips that probably lasted about 8 seconds, but felt unfortunately so much longer, before they pulled away and Lance jumped up. 

“Haha, I think I’m gonna? Go to the restroom?” 

But that was just code for home.

He was leaving.

And as options went, Lance would more than likely opt to meet Kaley for their date.

They’d date, and maybe they’d kiss. 

Maybe, come Monday morning, Lance would come to school and brag to their friends that he’d finally scored that girlfriend he’d always wanted, and maybe Hunk would have to see them holding hands or kissing at school, because Lance was that kind of guy, right? 

One to kiss at school and flaunt his relationship and be so incredibly romantic and gushy and head over heels, if he met the right person.

Hunk’s heart tightened as Lance left, grabbing his bag and awkward waving goodbye. 

He didn’t care that Lance was gone. 

What did you do after you’ve kissed your best friend the day before his date with the girl from your English class? What did you say to each other? Did you say anything at all? Or did you pop in The Little Rascals DVD you’d been planning on watching and make a silent pact to never talk about what happened, with only Alfalfa and his ridiculously pointy, plot-convenient hairstyle to stave off whatever negative thoughts you might have following said kiss? 

But with Lance’s quick action, now Hunk was alone. He put on the movie and stared blankly as Porky and Buckwheat exchanged a pickle for a nickel, Alfalfa burped up bubbles on stage, and as Alfalfa went behind everyone’s back to be with Darla.

Something about these little kids being romantically involved threw a wrench in Hunk’s stomach, and as “Why did Lance agree to practice kissing with me in the first place?” wriggled its way into his mind, Hunk stopped the movie and tried his best to go to sleep. 

Why? Why _did_ he do it? 

Why did Hunk throw away his first kiss on some practice round for Lance’s benefit? Well, it was for his too, but now he was beginning to regret it, and all the things that had previously seemed like benefits were now just piling up into a whole lot of mistakes. 

It hadn’t turned out to be anything he’d wanted. 

He’d build up this perfect idea of a kiss with Lance, but when it hadn’t met any of his expectations, it fell flat. And it… certainly didn’t help that Lance had basically run away. 

Hunk gripped his pillow tighter, closed his eyes and willed his brain to shut up. 

But unfortunately, your body doesn’t really give you the option to will away pain, or negative thoughts, because that sort of thing required distractions. 

 

Sunday was a silent hell, and Monday only brought dread. 

He’d had perfect attendance since elementary, and Hunk didn’t want to risk that just because he didn’t want to face reality on the chance that his best friend had a girlfriend now. 

Didn’t wanna face the chance that their practice kiss hadn’t meant anything to Lance, other than practice, of course. 

But at the same time, he didn’t feel like he could will himself out of bed for any of what today might have in store for him. 

His mother came into his room shortly after 6:20 and flicked on all the lights, and didn’t opt out of turning on the clock radio. 

Nothing like the chatter of 104.1 KRBE’s _The Roula & Ryan Show_ to rouse you from the depths of a depressive hell with stories about Kim Kardashian’s fake publicity stunt, limited edition sneaker sales in obscure places and arguably funny stories about the stupid things people do.

“Come on, Hunk, up and at ‘em, honey.” She pulled the covers off of him and he dug his face into his pillow to avoid the everything that was happening right now, between the invasive cold of his room, the sound of Roula going on about something or other and the unfortunate brightness of the ceiling fan light.

Hunk could mentally picture her shaking a thick finger at him as she said, “Oh no you don’t, you’ve had a perfect record all this time and I don’t know what’s wrong right now, but you’re going to get out of bed and you can tell me about it over your breakfast, alright?” 

Not alright, actually. He didn’t want to get up, or eat, or go to school, or do anything but sleep and maybe die while wrapped up in his ancient and ratty Transformers blanket. But he did anyway. 

Got up, ate biscuits and gravy, drove to school and stepped inside his first period class. 

At least Lance wasn’t in his first period. Thank whatever God there might be for small mercies such as this. 

Second, however, was another story. 

When he walked in, Lance was already there, but he was keeping to himself, and he looked _down_ , if nothing else. 

“You okay, buddy?” Hunk asked, trying to keep up his good friend role, trying his hardest not to collapse in on himself and start bawling, to not fuck everything up and say the wrong thing to Lance. 

Lance shrugged. “I almost puked on Kaley last night.” He said it in a whisper, because obviously that wasn’t the sort of thing you wanted to say with a regular volume in your government class.

“Nerves?” 

He hesitated to answer, and Hunk noticed. “Yeah… Something like that.” 

Hunk could have read into that more. Could have overthought it and nearly wrecked himself by doing it, but he didn’t have the energy. 

Instead, he threw himself into his AP Government work and tried to keep his thoughts and feelings at bay. 

 

“Is something wrong with Lance?” Pidge asked, throwing her backpack down. 

“Probably. He almost threw up on his date, so there’s potential for a lot of things to be wrong.” 

“Okay, so you’re not doing so hot yourself, got it.” Pidge slapped a notebook onto the lunch table. “Wanna talk about it? I could always use more outside Psychology study.” She smiled. 

“Maybe not today? I don’t know if I’m up for baring my inner person to you right now.” 

Pidge shrugged. “Fair enough. Let me know if you change your mind, though. It’s not just about psychology.” 

“I know… You’re my friend, and I appreciate it, Pidge.”

Pidge had options too. 

Pidge had chosen to come out as a trans guy 8th grade year, but by junior year, she realized maybe that wasn’t really the case. Instead she came out as bigender and chose to keep going by Pidge, only now with a new option for everyone else: male or female pronouns for her. 

Lots of people still went with he/him, so Hunk decided to go with she/her, just for some variety in her life. 

If only Hunk had more options in this mess of a situation with Lance. 

What kind of options? He wasn’t really sure, but he’d appreciate some. 

 

Hunk decided later, after school was long over, to text Lance. 

From: Hunk  
_Do you want to talk?_

From: Lance  
_what about?_

From: Hunk  
_I don’t know. Anything? Everything? I’m seriously stressed out, dude._

From: Lance  
_sure then. your place?_

From: Hunk  
_You know it!_

The exclamation mark killed him a little bit, but he sent the message with it even after deleting it a good 5 times or so. 

And that was when a new thought occurred to him: As people, we have options. But that doesn’t always mean we go for the best one.

 

When Lance finally got there, the house filled with a fog of awkward. 

His words and actions seemed forced, not as genuine and breathtakingly attention-capturing as usual.

It hurt. 

Hunk sat down on the couch with a hot pocket. He’d need it if things started going sour. 

He hoped Lance would realize he was stressed by the fact that this conversation had to happen while food was made deliberately available to him— stress eating. 

“I don’t want to beat around the bush this time… And I’m sorry for that but I don’t know if I can stomach building up to everything I want to ask, so… What really happened on your date with Kaley?” 

Lance was quiet for a good while. “It was a normal date. Nothing out of the ordinary. We ate, held hands, talked. It was what you’d expect. But then… she tried to kiss me. Did, actually. And my stomach didn’t agree with it. Nothing did. Not my stomach, not my head and especially not my heart. I threw up. Almost on her, but thankfully I missed.” 

Lance looked up at Hunk, and he looked ready to cry. “When you offered to practice with me… Why did you do it?” 

Hunk felt his stomach drop a bit, but he kept himself fairly well composed. “Because I wanted to kiss you. More than anything.” 

And he knew. Knew that being bi, like Lance was, was one thing. But it was something completely different to be bi for your best friend. 

He was probably just as wrecked in his own way, and it was all Hunk’s fault.

A tear slipped down Lance’s cheek. “Yeah… I figured. It was that or you’re just an incredible friend. But see, after you kissed me, as awful as it was, I didn’t want to go on that date with Kaley. I almost didn’t want to go on a date at all, but then I realized— nah. I do wanna go on a date. But still not with Kaley. With you. I mean, to be honest, I knew that all along, but...” Lance was biting his bottom lip, and it looked like he’d really had to steel himself in order to put that out there. 

God, he was going to be the death of Hunk.

“But then… why did you leave?”

“I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sorry… God, I fucked everything up, didn’t I?” 

Hunk got a bit closer. “No, you didn’t fuck anything up. I mean, maybe you made things a bit harder for us, but you didn’t fuck anything up. If anything, _I_ fucked everything up… I didn’t _have_ to offer to practice with you— but I did? I’m sorry, Lance. I shouldn’t have done that.” He backed away. He’d expected that to come out differently, hence the step forward, but instead it was what it was. 

Lance took a step forward to make the gap between them smaller. “Yeah, but if you didn’t, I don’t think I would have ever been able to actually tell you? Tell you that like, I don’t want to date some girl from school that I hardly know? I only know her ‘cause we always have 1 class together during the school year. It’s senior year, y’know? I don’t know her and I don’t know what she’s doing after high school. But you,” Lance sighed. “I’ve known you forever, dude. Since we were in diapers. She gets good grades and she looks sort of bitchy, even though she’s not— I found that out after I almost puked on her and admitted I went on a date with her even though I was in love with my best friend— but I know almost everything about you. I’m probably top 3 in the list of people who know you really well, and that’s only because you’re at the top of the list and your mom is second. I have to give her credit, I wouldn’t have wanted to know what your bowel movements smelled like as a baby, no offense. I only don’t remember because, one, I was a baby too, and two, I was probably caught up with smelling _my own_ bowel movements.”

Hunk shook his head. God, he was rambling, but it was coming from the heart and he almost wanted to cry, watching the expressions shift on Lance’s face and his wild use of his arms and hands while he spoke. 

“I should probably _really_ stop talking about us shitting ourselves as babies, uhm,” Lance was caught up in a moment of minor panic, and all Hunk could think about was how mesmerizing he was; beautiful and eccentric. 

“But like, you’re gorgeous and I’m pretty sure you’re gonna be valedictorian and it’s weird to me that someone can be so sweet and smart and somehow manage to get away with smoking weed and being pan as fuck, but you do it? You’re this guy all your own and it makes me so mad all the time because I have to look into your big brown eyes and see that big, stupid, handsome smile on your face and I just wanna kiss you breathless all the time but we’re best friends! You can’t just make out with your best friend and expect everything to be okay!” Lance pulled at his hair and growled, face flushed a dark red. 

“You—” Hunk nearly choked on the word, “—you could.” 

Lance looked up from the floor. “Could what?” 

“Kiss me. Breathless.”

And his best friend looked at him with an expression Hunk would never forget.

Hunk could _see_ the gears in Lance’s mind stop turning abruptly, before kicking back in, only this time in hyperdrive as he processed what Hunk had just told him. His expression was empty, but he stepped forward, and in what felt like a matter of seconds, their lips were connected. 

Lance arms went around Hunk’s neck and Hunk’s hands reach up to hold Lance’s cheeks in his hands, swiping his thumbs over his cheekbones and letting his eyes fall shut. 

When Lance’s lips hit Hunk’s own full and warm ones, he had to keep himself from outright _melting_. 

It was awkward, but if nothing else, at least they’d manage to stick the landing and not bonk faces or something, so that was cool. 

What was really super _not_ cool, however, was how Lance’s lips worked against Hunk’s, because it sort of hurt, but it had his heart tightening in his chest, because even though this was happening, it didn’t feel real. 

Lance pulled him closer and it felt like he was on the edge of outright jumping up and wrapping his legs around Hunk’s waist— but he didn’t. And Hunk wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not, because while that certainly would have been appealing, he couldn’t exactly hide the almost-boner he had that way.

Finally, Lance pulled away and sucked in a breath, his eyes twinkling with tears and happiness, and despite his own breathlessness, Hunk gave him tiny kisses all over his face, holding him close and treasuring this moment for as long as he could. 

“Uh, Hunk?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Do I really have to ask whether this means we can date or something?” 

“Nah. I think this all sorta speaks for itself?” 

Lance nodded. “Yeah, I guess it does, huh?” 

And it did. 

So, Lance didn’t come to school with a girlfriend. Instead, he got an after school boyfriend. 

Sure, Hunk had ended up falling for his best friend, but at least Lance wasn’t straight. 

Hunk had been selfish, and unlike most acts of selfishness (which don’t always pan out as well, as they really shouldn’t) Hunk’s succeeded, and here he was, finally able to date the boy he’d been absolutely taken with for years now.

Things like this don’t always have a happy ending— not in real life, not even in fiction.

And Hunk realized just how lucky he was.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, you can see more from me @dogmemes420 if you care to! happy halloween eve, you guys!!!!


End file.
